


Clever, Solitary Girl

by grey_gazania



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Gen, Genderswap, genderswap aLL THE THINGS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:23:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6789961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey_gazania/pseuds/grey_gazania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes from the life of Theodora Nott.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1985

“This is called _pithing_ ,” Theodora's father said, holding up a needle. With his other hand, he reached into the glass bowl that sat on the table and indicated a spot on the frog that sat within it. “I’m going to stick the needle here and wiggle it around. What that does is destroy the frog’s brain, but leave its brain stem intact. Since the brain is destroyed, the frog can’t feel any pain. But leaving the brain stem alone means you’ll be able to see how the organs work when we cut it open.”

Theo nodded, wide-eyed, and watched closely as he lifted the frog and inserted the needle. That done, he laid the frog belly-up on the dissecting tray and pinned its feet.

“Now,” he said, “pick up the knife – _carefully_. You’re going to cut here.” Once she had the knife in her grasp, he placed one large, warm hand over her own small fist and guided her as she sliced the frog open, one careful slit from chin to groin.

“Very good,” he praised. “I’ll do the next part, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, passing the knife to him before staring at the still-beating heart that was now visible. It was dark in colour, pulsing gently, and she found herself slightly transfixed by it.

“Is that what my heart looks like?” she asked.

“Not really,” her father said, finishing the necessary cuts and pulling the frog’s abdomen all the way open. “Human hearts are much bigger, obviously, and more of a reddish-pink. I can show you one when we finish this. Now,” he said, pointing with the needle, “these are the lungs here. See how they move when the frog breathes? And this here is the liver…”

He continued on, occasionally prompting her with questions, and together they carefully removed the organs, piece by piece like some living puzzle.

“Last, we’ll take its heart out,” he said, passing her the knife once more. Theo nodded solemnly and took it in her tiny hands.

With one swift cut, the frog died.

  
  



	2. 1987

“You have to be _very_ careful with this,” her father said, handing her the wand with great solemnity. “It’s quite old, and wands can be very dangerous.”

Theo nodded, taking the wand and studying the intricate carving on the handle. “What’s it made of?” she asked.

“Elm and unicorn hair,” Leontius said. “Nine-and-a-half inches. It was your great-great-great-great-grandfather’s.”

“The one who went to Azkaban?”

“Yes. But never forget, he was innocent,” he reminded her. “Now,” he said, drawing his own wand, “you hold it like this, see?” He reached over and adjusted her fingers slightly as she tried to copy him, then nodded in satisfaction. “Good. We’re going to start with something very simple, okay? You don’t have to move the wand at all. Just repeat after me: _Lumos_.”

“ _Lumos_ ,” Theo said. Nothing happened; no light appeared to match the little glowing flame at the tip of her father’s wand, and she frowned. “ _Lumos_ ,” she said, trying again.

Still nothing.

Her brow furrowed in concentration, she tried a third time. “ _Lumos_!” The tip of the wand ignited, and a pleased smile spread across her face. “I did it!” she said, looking to her father. “Dad, I did it!”

“That’s my girl,” he said proudly, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “Now, repeat after me…”

  
  



	3. 20 December 1991

"Have I ever told you about your great-great aunt Locusta?" Leontius asked.

Theo shook her head as she measured out the gingerbread spices. She'd missed this, at school - winter days spent in the warm kitchen, reading or playing chess, listening to her father's stories and teasing out the advice hidden inside. Hogwarts had no quiet, cozy spaces. Hogwarts had no one like her father.

"She used these very cakes to poison her husband. Amyntas Abbott, his name was," Leontius said, waving his wand over the mixing bowl. "A fine match, or so everyone thought at the time. But they hadn't been married even a full year before Locusta learned that he'd taken some Mudblood whore as his mistress.

"Naturally, she couldn't take such an insult lying down. So that Christmas, she added a glaze when she made these. Cinnamon and almond. Perfectly harmless, except on the one cake that she gave to Amyntas to taste. That one had--"

"Cyanide?" Theo said.

"Very good," Leontius said. "Why cyanide?"

Theo set down the measuring spoon and tapped her fingers on the countertop. "Well," she said, "the almond oil would have disguised the taste, for one. And it is a rather potent poison, so she wouldn't have needed to use a large amount. If the dose were concentrated enough and any bezoars in the house were well boxed-up and a few rooms away, he'd have been dead before any standers-by could get one into his mouth.

"And a great-great aunt... this would have been sometime in the 17th Century," she continued. "Bezoars weren't exactly a sickle for seven, nor were poison-detecting techniques particularly sophisticated. Considering the circumstances, it should have been a nearly undetectable murder."

"Well done," Leontius said with a proud smile. "1674, to be exact. You've been brushing up on your poisons."

Theo grinned, pleased by her success. "Was she caught?" she asked.

Leontius shook his head. "No. It was a _dreadful_ situation, of course; poor Locusta widowed at such a tender age, and Amyntas' potential so suddenly cut short - such a tragedy! She remarried after the proper mourning period - a man from the Black family, Torcularis, he invented the Hurling Hex - and lived a long, successful life. No one would ever have known, had she not confessed to her son on her deathbed.

"You remember Locusta, my girl, as you go out into the world." He kissed the top of Theo's head, and then bent to look her in the eyes. "Don't wait for any sort of saviour. When you have a problem, you solve it, and you solve it so it _stays_ solved."

  
  



	4. 10 December 1994 -- Journal Entry

One of the Durmstrang students has been coming to Chess Club. His name is Henrik. We’re about evenly matched, so we’ve been playing each other quite often, at the club and also out in the courtyard during free time. He’s actually sought me out for games, and I’ve thought for a few weeks now that he’s been flirting. But I wasn’t sure, because everything I know about flirting I learned by watching Daphne, and _any_ boy who's talking to Daphne is probably flirting.

I like him. He’s gracious, and refined, and intelligent as well. And he makes me laugh.

I also _**know** _ now that he was flirting, because he came over at lunch today and asked me to the Yule Ball. In front of everybody - Daphne and Tracey and Millicent and a good half of the House.

  


* * *

  


_"Teodora," Henrik said, "you are a radiant blossom. I vould ask you to grace me vith your company at ze Yule Ball."_

_Theo felt her cheeks grow warm, and lifted one hand to cover her mouth as she grinned stupidly, feeling a rush of mingled happiness and embarrassment. “Yes,” she managed to squeak out. “Yes, of course. I would love to.”_

_"Zen I am ze happiest man in all of Hogvarts," he said, beaming back. He took her free hand and bent over to brush a kiss against her knuckles. "And I avait ze evening vith much anticipation."_

_He swept out to join his school-mates, and Theo sank to her seat at the table with a small squeak._

_"Ho-ho, Nott," Millicent said, waggling her eyebrows. "Is someone going to get lucky?"_

_“Shut up, Midge,” Theo said, shoving the other girl's shoulder. She knew she must be bright red, and buried her face in her hands._

_"I think someone already got lucky," said Tracey. "He’s a looker. How’d you manage to snare him?"_

_"I didn’t ‘snare’ anybody," Theo moaned. She drop her arms onto the table and pillowed her head on them. Her voice was muffled as she continued, "We’ve been playing chess, if you must know. Out in the courtyard."_

_"Right. Chess." Daphne smirked and flipped her glistening hair over her shoulder. "You didn't use your **legendary**  feminine wiles?"_

  


* * *

  


I said yes; of course I said yes! But the teasing after he left - I don’t know if I’ll ever live it down. First Midge insinuating that I’d give up my virtue, and then Tracey and Daphne saying I “snared” him with my “feminine wiles”. It wouldn’t have been completely awful, except it was so mean-spirited.

Well, not so much Midge - she was just teasing - but Daphne and Tracey.

See, Daphne and Tracey are pretty. Daphne especially, with her blonde hair and her bosoms, but Tracey can pull off that sylph look that some of the boys like. And I’m not. I know I’m not pretty. My mouth is too wide, my face is too narrow, I’ve got those freckles on my nose, my elbows and knees stick out, I have no bust and no hips - I haven’t even started bleeding yet!

Dad says that I shouldn’t worry over it, because my mind is more important. And he says I take after Mum; that I may be awkward for a few years, but soon I’ll shoot up a bit, and then I’ll grow into my own face. But none of that changes the fact that right now I look like an underfed rabbit.

But the thing is, when Henrik says I’m pretty, I _**feel**_ pretty. Maybe it’s because of how he says it. Not like I’m objectively attractive - no one would say that. But like I’m pretty to him, pretty as a complete entity, not as a face.

He kissed my hand, like proper gentlemen do. And he called me a radiant blossom. A radiant blossom!

Daphne can stuff that in her pipe and smoke it.

  
  



	5. 22 July 1995

Theo woke up.

She didn’t know why at first, with her head still muzzy from sleep, and she blinked at the clock with bleary eyes. It was late, close to 3 in the morning. Peering over the side of her bed, she saw that Hal had also woken and was watching the bedroom door intently, his head raised and his ears pricked up.

Soon there was a scuffing tread on the front steps, barely audible, and the sound of the door creaking open. Hal’s tail began to wag. That meant only one thing - Dad was home.

“Stay,” she whispered to Hal, pushing back the covers and stepping softly onto the cold floor. She crept barefoot to the stairs and peeked over the banister, taking care to keep her movements silent. She had always been a light sleeper, and ever since the Dark Lord’s return this had become a routine: waking when her father returned from his long nights out and watching, unseen, as he came home to see that he was safe and sound. 

So far he always had been - until tonight.

He had pulled the door shut and stood sagged against the wall with his eyes closed. His breathing was visibly laboured, and even in the dim light Theo could see the ashen cast of his face.

Fear propelled her down the stairs and to his side. “Dad,” she said, her voice hushed but urgent. “Dad, what happened?”

“Theo?” he said. He sounded exhausted. “What are you doing down here? You should be in bed.” He started to straighten up, but his face was still pallid and his breathing rough, and all too soon he was leaning against the wall once more.

“I heard you come in,” she said, tugging absently at the sleeve of her shirt. “You need to sit, Dad.”

He was worryingly clammy and trembling slightly. Fear and anxiety had congealed into a knot somewhere between her chest and stomach, and she lifted one of his arms over her shoulders before walking him to a chair in the parlour, letting him lean against her.

He didn’t sit so much as collapse, and she hovered beside him, biting her lower lip when he grimaced in pain.

“I’ll be fine, Theo,” he said, patting her hand weakly.

She shook her head emphatically. “I’m getting you some water,” she insisted.

A jingling noise announced Hal’s arrival as she left the room, and she breathed a little easier knowing he was there. Padding to the kitchen, she filled a tall glass with water and went to the potion cupboard, where she scanned the shelves until she spotted a bottle of Anodyne Potion.

Her father was leaning back in the chair with his eyes closed when she returned, absently stroking Hal’s ears. She set the cup and bottle on the table next to him and then sat on the carpet at Hal’s other side, curling her legs beneath her and burying her fingers in his long, soft fur.

“What happened?” she asked softly.

He added three drops of the potion to his water and took a long drink before saying, “Nothing you need to worry about, my girl.”

She lifted her chin and said, “I think my father walking through the door at 3am and nearly passing out  _is_  something I need to worry about.” More quietly, she added, “I’m not stupid, Dad. I do know why you go out at night.”

He took another long drink of water and reached over Hal to stroke her hair. “The Dark Lord,” he finally said, “values discipline and accuracy. I erred in a task I was given, and I was justly reprimanded. That is all you need to know, Theo.”

It wasn’t a difficult set of dots to connect.  _He was tortured_ , she thought, feeling sick. _Tortured by **our** side._

She reached up to grasp his hand, and he squeezed hers in response. “I’ll be all right,” he said. “You’ll see - I’ll be back on my feet by morning. Now go back to sleep, my girl. You need your rest as well.”

  
  



	6. 2 July 1996 -- Journal Entry

_Dear Mum,_

_Dad is in Azkaban. Maybe you know already. (Do you know already? Are you watching what happens here, or have you gone to some quiet place to wait for us?) He was caught breaking into the Department of Mysteries with a group of other Death Eaters._

_I’ve been sent to live with your sister. And I’m so, **so** angry at everyone - at her, at Dad, at your brother, at Potter, at the Dark Lord. I haven’t seen any of your family since you died. Dad told me it was because they didn’t want to keep in contact. But he lied to me. He cut them off because they wanted to erase my memory of what happened to you. He lied. Your family should be my family, but they’re strangers. What gave Dad the right to do that? What gave him the right to take them away without even telling me the truth?_

_And Gwendolen and Iago - I’ve heard them talking. They want me to be you, and I’m not. They don’t think I’m like you at all. It disappoints them. But you were their sister! If Dad can find pieces of you in me, why can’t they? And if they really were that concerned over how Dad was raising me, why did they give up trying to contact me so easily? They could have written to me at school and Dad would have been none the wiser, but they stopped trying when I was only eight._

_I don’t know why I’m even writing this. It’s not as though I can send it to you. But I feel so alone. It’s as if everyone has stopped seeing who I am. Gwendolen, Iago, my classmates - they look at me and all they see is Dad. I’m not Dad. I’m not you, either. I’m me. Why is that not enough?_

_I’m terrified that Dad might die. He’s 104, and he was hurt during the fight. They won’t take care of him in Azkaban. I don’t know what I’d do if he died. Die too, probably. At least then the three of us would be together._

_I wish you were here, Mum. I miss you so much._

_Love,_

_Theo_

  
  



	7. In the Bleak Midwinter: 21 December 1996

She was alone. The school had emptied the day before, students piling into carriages with their trunks, leaving puffs of mist in the air from their laughter, ready for the train to carry them back to their families.

She’d nearly laughed as well when Flora Carrow asked if she was going home for Christmas. _What home?_ she’d wanted to say. _My mother is rotting in a crypt and my father is rotting in a prison cell. I don’t have a home._

But she’d merely given a lie and a fake smile, as fake as the letter she had penned earlier that week to her mother’s sister - lie after lie covered in a veneer of proper manners.

> _Dear Aunt Gwendolen,_
> 
> _Thank you for your kind offer, but I must regretfully decline. I am afraid I have quite a significant amount of schoolwork and will need access to the Hogwarts library. Please pass along my holiday regards to Uncle Iago and his family._
> 
> _Sincerely,_
> 
> _Theodora_

Pansy, Daphne, Millicent, and Tracey had left with the rest of them, leaving their room dark and quiet. There was no one to bother her, to tug her out into the light and force her to squeeze words she didn’t mean past the lump of ice in her throat.

So she had stayed in bed. It wasn’t as if she’d be missed. Not asleep, though; she’d wrapped herself in a cocoon that shut out time and muffled the world around her. But even that couldn’t keep the awful pictures in her head at bay.

_Her father on the cover of the **Daily Prophet** , chained to a courtroom chair and looking older than she had ever seen him. Gwendolen and Iago speaking in hushed voices: “She has Delia’s face, but that man crushed out anything else of Delia’s that she may have had.” Hands shoving her in the hallways, hexes shot at her back, angry faces wielding words like knives - **bitchcuntslag gonna be a murderer like her daddy?**. The P at the top of her Charms essay, and Flitwick’s neat handwriting below: “Disjointed, poorly sourced, with no discussion of the deeper concepts. I’m disappointed.”_

Her stomach rumbled. Maybe she would shower and go to dinner.

Or maybe she would lie here and listen to the water swishing overhead, trying not to think of her father, her mother’s siblings, her classmates, her grades, or the frigid loneliness that settled in her chest and crept up her throat, cutting off her words.

No, not thinking of any of those things; only of how easy it would be to go far, far out on the lake, onto the brittle ice that not even the most foolhardy Gryffindors dared go near.

Of how easy it would be to fall through and never come back up.

  
  



	8. 28 December 1996

Theo was alone again, barefoot and pyjama-clad, hiding once more from the patrols, from her scattered handful of Housemates, from the warmth of the common room and the library. She knew better than to seek comfort there, not when she was unwanted, nothing but Death Eater’s daughter, an orphan, a liability for her House.

And so the dungeons had become her refuge, the deepest, dankest places that not even the Bloody Baron bothered to haunt, places already so dark that her presence couldn’t defile them further. She couldn’t cleanse herself, couldn’t fill the great black hollow in her chest or melt the ice lodged in her throat, and the only way to keep from infecting those around her was to stay away, to wrap herself in darkness and solitude.  


But she couldn’t go on like this.  


She had no one. Her mother was dead, her father in prison, and her friends...well. She had never had many, and she couldn’t bring herself to trouble them; they would be better without her there to drag them down. And as for the professors, those who were supposed to guide the students in their parents’ absence, they had no time for her.

She would never be good enough for them -- she’d learned that in her first year. It didn’t matter how well she did in her classes; she had a green-and-silver tie, so she wasn’t worth anything. Now the only people who had ever seen anything of value in her were gone, and she was nothing but a proxy for her father - only there to be a receptacle for other people’s anger.  


She rested her head against the cold stone of the wall, closed her dry, tired eyes, and listened to the gentle swish of the lake above. As it echoed in her head, she gave in to the thought that had haunted her for weeks now.  


There _was_ one thing she could do, one way to find her family again, one way to stop the oozing emptiness inside her from spreading.  


She took stock of things. It was four minutes to curfew. If she was quick and lucky, she could make it outside before the doors were locked for the night. The jumper she wore over her pyjamas was thick and would quickly grow heavy once wet. She had no shoes, but going back to get them would take too much time - and it wasn't as though cold toes would matter for much longer.

Thanking Salazar for the school's secret passages, she walked a few metres up the hall and tapped her wand against one of the stones in the wall. It swung inward, taking its neighbors with it, and she ducked inside. Navigating between the passages and the corridors, she made it to the door unseen with only a minute to spare.

The grounds were silent and blanketed in snow, which shone dimly under the light of the crescent moon above. She plodded towards the lake, wrapping her arms around herself and ignoring her chattering teeth. Her feet were numb by the time she reached the shore, and she paused there, looking out over the smooth ice and estimating how far she would need to go.

_I'm coming, Mum_ , she thought. Then she took a few deep breaths and stepped out onto the lake.

It took some time to reach the center; the ice was slick under her numb feet and she was forced to walk slowly to avoid slipping. But she pressed on, gritting her teeth to keep them from chattering and ignoring the cold gusts that stung her face. One foot in front of the other, step by careful step, she plodded over the lake until she heard the ice begin to creak beneath her.

She stopped. This was it - the point of no return. If she walked forward now, she would leave the world behind forever. A lone, quiet voice in the back of her mind urged her to turn around, to walk back to the warm lights of the castle, and she stood motionless, breathing deeply, while she forced it into silence. Then she closed her eyes and took a step forward, followed by another, and another, until ----

                                      ** _[ C R A C K ! ]_**

\---- Her stomach lurched as her feet went through the ice, and she instinctively flung her arms out to break her fall, but they crashed through as easily as the rest of her.

She was in the water.

It was _frigid_. She gasped as she splashed down, taking in a breath that was half air, half water, before the lake closed over her head. A thousand needles were gouging her open from the inside out, and she gasped again with pain, but now there was no air at all, only cold, cold and gouging needles and light exploding across her eyes.

But she couldn't stop her treacherous body from fighting for breath, and her attempts to cough up the water only brought more rushing in, each lungful multiplying the stabbing in her chest, leaving her in agony. The Cruciatus Curse would pale beside this, she was sure, and she struggled for the surface, but there was only the lake, the water she spent her nights under now soaking her jumper, filling her lungs, and tugging her down with icy fingers into its dark heart.

_I'm dying_ , she realised.

The thought was strangely detached, as though it came from some hazy place far, far above. The pain was fading. Her struggles slowed as her body went numb. She ceased her gasps for air, and her panic fell away, leaving a sense of peace in its place. Why had she been fighting? This was what she wanted. The pain had gone; the cold had gone. It was fitting that she would die here, cradled in the quiet, black depths. And her mother was waiting for her. She closed her eyes and sank

                    into

                                 the

                                             dark...

                                                            dark...

                                                                         dark...

                                                                                    dark...

                                                                                              dark...

  


* * *

  


Someone saw. Theo never learned who, but some nameless busybody saw her dark figure out on the ice, saw her go under and raised the alarm.

Minerva McGonagall came, she who was responsible for the students in Dumbledore's absence, and Poppy Pomfrey, and Severus Snape, who thought to ask the merfolk for aid. But the lake was wide and deep, and it was over half an hour before they found her body, eighty metres under and resting in a bed of weeds. Still, their webbed hands pulled her to the surface and passed her limp form to Madam Pomfrey who waited on the shore.

She was grey-skinned and blue-lipped, her wet hair and sodden clothes soon growing stiff in the frosty wind. Water spilled from her nose and mouth, and no pulse beat beneath her icy skin. But Poppy Pomfrey had never yet given up on a student, and she set to work, casting warming charms and breathing spells, using her magic to force the girl's heart to beat.

_(Go back, love,_ said Cordelia Nott. _There are books you haven't read, spells you haven't learned, songs you haven't written. Go back.)_

Finally, finally, Theo coughed, and Madam Pomfrey turned her on her side as she retched up lake water and then drew in several shuddering breaths. But her eyes remained closed, lids not so much as flickering as she was transferred to a stretcher and carried through the dark halls to the hospital wing.

There, dressed in clean, dry pyjamas and under a heavy layer of blankets, Theo slept, pale and fragile and unaware, for the moment, that she had failed.  


  
  



	9. 9 March 1997 -- Journal Entry

_Dear Mum,_

_It’s Mothering Sunday again. I know I don’t usually write on Mothering Sunday, since I don’t recall us ever doing anything particularly special when you were alive, but everyone around me is sending home gifts and cards, and I can’t help thinking of you._

_I think I’ve written to you more this year than ever before, even more than during Third Year. Part of it is that I don’t have anyone else to talk to, if I’m honest. But I miss you, Mum. And I’m starting to forget. I can’t remember what your voice sounded like anymore, did you know? I hope writing to you will help me hold on to the memories I still have. I don’t **want** to forget anything else. I don’t **want** my most vivid memory of you to be your death._

_Maybe Dad should have listened to Gwendolen and Iago. Maybe he should have erased that memory. I don’t know anymore._

_I can’t call them my aunt and uncle. I’m sorry. I know you loved them and they loved you, but I don’t think they love me. They want more echoes of you than I have to offer.  
_

_I’m a little better than I was at Christmas, I guess. I still feel empty and cold, but I don’t want to die. After all, you told me to go back, or at least I think you did. Maybe I imagined that; I don’t know. But if it really did happen, if I really did see you, then I know you must have had a reason. I may not believe in fate, but I do believe that you only ever wanted the best for me -- the **real** me, not the me everyone else sees these days._

_I miss you._

_Help me remember, Mum. If there is anything you can do from where you are, wherever that is, then please: Help me remember. Help me remember you. Help me remember that we were happy, once. Help me.  
_

_Love,_

_Theo  
_

  
  



	10. 5 September 2004

_Dear Miss Nott,_

_We regret to inform you that Leontius Nott (Prisoner #498) passed away yesterday evening. Should you wish to collect the body, you may come before noon tomorrow._

_Yours sincerely_ , 

_Eloise Deverill_  


* * *

Theo read the letter over a second time before making a note in her calendar for the next day. She should feel something, she supposed, grief or pain or even relief, but instead she just felt numb.

The news itself was not a shock. Her father’s health had declined steadily over the past year, and even if he had not been imprisoned, at 112 years old he was most certainly in the twilight of his life. She had known he would die sooner rather than later.

She didn’t need to make many arrangements. He would go in the family crypt beside her mother. There would be no wake, no funeral, for who would come? Draco, perhaps, but his relationship with his own father had been very different. He wouldn’t – _couldn’t_ – truly understand what she had lost.

Her father would go in the family crypt beside her mother, and one day Theo herself would join them. Maybe in eighty years, or maybe in five if she slid once more off the eternal tightrope of her melancholic mind and found that there was no one to catch her.

She wondered if they would be together once more, or if her father was damned to some hellish afterlife. If he was damned, then surely her mother was as well; while she had never killed with her own hands, her personal research had helped the Death Eaters torture and murder countless victims.

Perhaps she would have to damn herself to join them.

But these were morbid thoughts, and useless ones to boot. Shaking her head as though she could dislodge them by force, she stood and left the kitchen. Barefoot, she walked through the garden and into the woods toward the crypt. She had a little bit of work to do.  


  
  



End file.
